Faces in the Night

by Thomas Conuel

  Lester Carlson drove and Katherine sat in the deep leather seats of the Mercedes and twirled the knobs on the car stereo.

  “A good sound system, I bet,” Katherine said

  Lester Carlson picked up a CD and handed it to Katherine. “Only way to find out is to give it a listen. Try it. That’s a favorite of mine. Mozart’s 40th symphony.”

  Katherine slid the disk into the CD player and for several minutes they listened to Mozart.

  “A hit man for God”—that’s what they called this priest who came looking for old Elijah Durman?” Katherine looked over at Lester Carlson. Lester Carlson turned the sound down.

  “Father Phil, the Jesuit at the historic society told me the whole story the other day when we were visiting him there. The Jesuits have been chasing this evil being for centuries. They had a priest come out here around 1790 or so. Looking for a man, somebody around here, an evil guy with a special cross, and then a big storm comes up out of nowhere; a tree falls and kills the Jesuit priest.

  “And then later,” Katherine continued looking out the car window, forcing herself to sound casual, “when they were building Quabbin Reservoir, another Jesuit priest shows up, Father Baker, trying to track down the history and the story of the death of the first Jesuit.”

  Katherine paused. “And then that Jesuit dies, too. Father Baker falls into an abandoned quarry and drowns in 1936.”

  “So why was the first Jesuit priest after Elijah Durman?” Lester Carlson asked.

  “His name was Father Ignatius Paul and he was born around here in 1750 or so when it was Narragansett Territory Number 4. He was the Jesuit’s problem solver,” Katherine said. “One of the few authorized to conduct exorcisms and to enforce the will of God, no matter the means.”

  “The will of God as defined by the Jesuits,” Lester Carlson interjected.

  “Exactly. The will of God as defined by the Jesuits—the soldiers of Christ,” Katherine agreed, “but also a tough character in his own right. According to Father Phil this priest used to roam about, mostly in Canada searching out evil. He’d even kill men if he thought they were truly evil. That’s how he got his nickname. There’s this book by some adjunct professor at Boston University about Father Ignatius Paul called A Hit Man for God.”

  “What was he after?” Lester Carlson asked. “You say he came all the way from Quebec to track down something or somebody in the Valley here?”

  “All the way from Quebec after the Revolutionary War. Sent on a mission to come to New England as soon as the Jesuits heard about this crazy Elijah Durman living out here, and his crimes, and his being condemned to death. And I guess, or rather Father Phil thinks, there must have been talk of the cross with the blue stone that Elijah Durman wore around his neck. And that sounded the alarm bell for the Jesuits,”

  “So they sent their best man,” Lester Carlson said.

  “Well, the Jesuits in Canada had been searching for decades looking for that special cross that once belonged to their great leader Sebastien Rale. He was one of those wonderful natural-born leaders with all sorts of charisma. He was in charge, totally, of the Jesuits most important missionary posts on the Kennebec River back around 1698 or so. He lived with the Norridgewock, a band of Abenakis. The Kennebec was big time important to the French back then. I t was their boundary against the English in New England.

  “But then Sebastien Rale was killed in a raid by the English in 1724, and they took his possessions. And he had one very important item that the English took. A strange crucifix with a blue-stone inlaid in the center. Father Phil has the whole story. He’s been researching it for part of a book on good and evil that he’s writing.”

  “So how did this cross end up out here in the Swift River Valley of Massachusetts?” Lester Carlson asked.

  “It had lots of history behind it,” Katherine replied. “The crucifix with the blue stone was stolen once from Sebastien Rale years earlier. He was so worried by the loss of the cross that he chased the thief into the wilderness of northern Maine and took back the cross. Then he wrote a letter to his Jesuit superiors in France about the cross and the special powers it held.

  “He wasn’t sure why, but he thought the blue stone inlaid in the cross gave it some strange power—you could be either a god or a devil. He’d found the blue stone by accident, or at least at the time it seemed like an accident, walking along the banks of the Kennebec one afternoon.”

  “The Jesuits chasing evil through the ages,” Lester Carlson said. They drove in silence for a mile before Lester Carlson spoke. “You know,” Lester Carlson said, “To change the subject, it’s funny how your kids turn out. I guess it’s true they usually turn out better than we expect or deserve.”

  “Your daughter is a talented singer,” Katherine said. “Do you have other kids?”

  “A son, also,” Lester Carlson said. “He’s a water quality engineer. Married. Nice wife. Two little girls. Works at home. Has all this testing paraphernalia and books and charts down in the basement. He stays at home as a househusband while his wife works. She’s an assistant producer for a children’s television show in Portland, Oregon.” Lester Carlson smiled and looked over at Katherine.

  “You and Blake never wanted kids?” he asked.

  “Never found the right time,” Katherine said. “One of my big mistakes in life. Now it’s kinda late.”

  “Maybe adopt,” Lester Carlson suggested.

  “If Blake ever gets it together, a possibility,” Katherine said.

  “Maria’s the one that got me to finally visit the Vietnam Memorial,” Lester Carlson said. He paused and absent-mindedly adjusted the sound of the car stereo again.

  “I’d always wanted to go see it, but felt like I shouldn’t go; that I didn’t belong. Maria was in town playing some show, and she insisted. ‘Dad,’ she said. ‘What do you mean you don’t belong down there? Of course you do. Stop blaming yourself for everything that happened back then. You did the best you could. So what if somebody recognizes you.’ So I went, and it changed my life.”

  “Blake goes there a lot,” Katherine said. “Vietnam really worked him over. That massacre he tried to report. Not just to you—to lots of others. And his buddy gets shot. I try to reason with him. If he’d followed his friend, he’d be dead today.”

  “Yes,” Lester Carlson answered softly. “Lots of bad things from that war. Lots of bad things.”

  “It changed you too?” Katherine asked.

  “I used to be in charge,” Lester Carlson said. “Always in command. I never gave a hoot,” Lester Carlson emphasized the word hoot for Katherine by drawing it out for a full second. “I never gave a hoot what people thought about me. Confrontations. No problem. Loved confrontations. And then there I was 10-15 years later, afraid to go visit the Vietnam Memorial because somebody might recognize me.”

  Lester Carlson shook his head in disapproval. “I guess you could say I’d changed a bit.”

  “Yes,” Katherine said. “We all changed a bit from those days.”

  “It’s really something,” Lester Carlson spoke again after a pause. “The memorial. There is a real presence there. A strong presence. All those names. All those boys who were loved and died and whose death devastated somebody. All those mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and lovers who lost somebody over there, and whose lives were never the same again. Weddings that never took place. Children that never got born. You feel it there at the Vietnam Memorial—standing there in front of those black panels full of names. All that loss and grief and never-ending sorrow. The names on those panels—58,000 names, and you think of the pain and sorrow that goes with each name. And for what?”

  Lester Carlson fell silent. The only sound inside the car was of Mozart playing softly, the third movement of his 40th symphony.

  “People leave notes, you know,” Lester Carlson said.

  Katherine nodded. “One time I was there with Blake and I saw a piece of paper taped to a panel so I read it. A simple note. Somethin
g from a guy who had been a friend of one of the dead. I felt like I’d touched something that wasn’t mine so I put the note back. It was a line or two from and old Doors song: ‘This is the end my friend; the only end.’”

  Katherine paused and then went on. “And then the note said something like: ‘We used to listen to the Doors together before the end came for you my friend. That was 15 years ago and I’m still here and you’re gone and that doesn’t seem fair for you were the better man. God bless and keep you always.’”

  Lester Carlson nodded and turned the volume up on the car stereo. He and Katherine listened to Mozart for several minutes without speaking. The music rose and fell in shifting moods—taking you places—inside a peaceful interlude, and then shifting back to a darker mood—a storm.

  Lester Carlson stopped for a red light and looked over at Katherine. “We all did what we had to do back then,” he said.

  Katherine nodded. “You and Blake both.”

  * * *

  Chapter 81

  Lester Carlson turned before reaching Belton center and drove along Route 9 for a mile heading east and then turned down a side street that led, after another mile, to the end of the public road and a gate that closed off vehicular access to Old Enfield Road. Lester Carlson parked his Mercedes to the side and he and Katherine stepped around the metal gate.

  The day was sunny and breezy. A bicyclist pedaled by as they walked down the paved road.

  “Amazing, really,” Katherine said. “They keep these old roads in such good repair.”

  “Makes it easier for the police to patrol and for the maintenance crews to get around. When I was out doing all my walks here in Quabbin, I always saw bicyclists.” Lester Carlson’s mood brightened as they walked.

  “Blake saw a pileated woodpecker at one of the other gates,” Katherine said. “He’s a birder.”

  “Where is Blake?” Lester Carlson said.

  “He’s home. He stayed up all night with me.”

  “Why?” Lester Carlson paused in the middle of the road. “Did my phone call upset you that much?”

  “I might as well tell you,” Katherine said. “I had a real bad experience a couple of hours before you called. Something was out last night and tried to get me too.”

  Lester Carlson stood still in the middle of Old Enfield Road. “I never, never, should have dragged you into this,” he said.

  Katherine walked over to a large rock and sat down. “Last night was strange,” she said, as Lester Carlson reached for a Thermos that he was carrying in a small cooler-pack. He poured a cup of coffee and then reached into the pack and removed a small bottle of Drambuie. He poured a generous dollop of the liquor into his coffee and then offered the Thermos and Drambuie to Katherine. She shook her head no, and then quickly told him of the incident with the blue light.

  Lester Carlson listened and frowned and sipped slowly from his cup. When she was done, he paced back and forth on the road. “I screwed up this whole deal,” he said. I never should have dragged you along.”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” Katherine said. “I came out here for Blake. Sometimes you’ve gotta believe in crazy things to find the truth.”

  “Did I tell you I went to see a psychologist about this?” Lester Carlson asked.

  “Really?” Katherine was surprised. The idea of Lester Carlson submitting himself to a psychological examination was difficult to picture.

  “Yup. Believe it or not. I actually sat still for an hour and told this psychologist all about seeing the face, and about the presence guiding me on these walks through Quabbin.”

  “What did he or she say?”

  “It was a man. Interesting guy. Dr. Robb. He basically believed me, but thought the face wasn’t real but something I was conjuring up.”

  Lester Carlson stopped and took another long sip from his coffee cup. “Dr. Robb, once he got me to sit, said I was creating my own hallucinatory image to compensate for all the guilt I’d stored up over the years both for Vietnam and for my part in destroying the Quabbin Valley. Pretty heavy stuff, don’t you think?”

  Katherine nodded and continued walking. Lester Carlson ambled alongside. Old Enfield Road was lush and overgrown with thick brush and small saplings fighting for a spot in the June sunlight on the road’s edge. Ahead of them, a red fox pranced out of the early afternoon shadows cast by the tall red pines and paused in the middle of the sun-dappled road. Katherine and Lester Carlson stopped and watched as the fox rolled in the loose gravel of the road and then sat for a moment soaking up the sun. The fox was perhaps 100 yards in front of them, but a shift in the wind carried their scent to him, and with a single fluid motion the fox glided across the road and vanished into the thick pine woods.

  “What made you go?” Katherine asked, continuing the conversation. “What made you want to tell a psychologist about this?”

  “I figured anything was worth trying once. I wanted to know if anybody would tell me I was actually crazy. So I made an appointment with this Dr. Robb in Northampton. I went in pretty defensive. You, know, this is all going to be a waste, but I’ll sit through it just to say I tried everything.”

  “That’s a pretty common attitude,” Katherine said.

  “Right. Well, I sat with Dr. Robb in this very nice office in this very comfortable easy chair and we just stared at each other for 10 minutes. So we’re just sitting there staring at each other and I finally got pissed off and jumped up and said: ‘Hey listen. I’m not paying $150 an hour so I can sit here and admire your hairpiece.’ That was a mean thing to say. I know. The guy had a pretty decent rug on, but you could tell he was wearing something.”

  “He must have wanted to toss you out,” Katherine said.

  “Well he was real good about it,” Lester Carlson said. “I got up and started to go, but this Dr. Robb kind of bit his tongue and hid his hurt and said to me: ‘Before you go, tell me one thing. How are you really doing? You came to me for a reason and if you want to insult me, that’s OK. But how are you doing now?’”

  Lester Carlson paused and pointed to a cellar hole on the side of the road. “That used to be the old Warner house. I dated one of the Warner girls when I was younger. I surveyed that property and supervised the demolition. Lots of memories for me on this road.”

  “I bet.”

  “Anyhow back to Dr. Robb. I’ll tell you Katherine that was the perfect thing to say to me. Because other than you, and my kids, nobody since my wife died has ever just asked me how I am doing. It’s like I’m supposed to be this human computer with no soul and now no feeling. My kids care, but that’s a different thing. Nobody asks me where I’m going, when I’ll be home, where I’ve been, what I plan to do on Sunday morning. It’s lonely getting old.”

  “I know,” Katherine said, “my mother was always saying ‘getting old is no joke.’ I’d say back to her, ‘yes, but it sure beats the alternative.’ And she lived to be 89.”

  Lester Carlson stopped and sipped again from his coffee cup.

  “Anyhow, Lester Carlson continued, “I turned and came back into Dr. Robb’s office and said to him: ‘Funny you should ask that because I’m not doing well at all. Some days I’m scared to death to even come downstairs in the morning.’ And you know Katherine, this is the first time in my entire life I have ever admitted to anybody, other than Emily my wife that I was not in control. That things were too much for me. The very first time in my entire life that I said I needed help.”

  Lester Carlson stopped talking and paused in the road. High overhead a large Red-tailed hawk glided by on a thermal updraft; its shadow skimmed over the dappled sunlight on the road. Lester Carlson continued.

  “I told this Dr. Robb everything. My whole life I’ve been in charge. Never any doubts. Never any fears. Do it my way or get out. My way or the highway. And then this face appears. I’m supposed to be retired and this thing starts happening to me. What did I do wrong?”

  “And what did he say?” Katherine asked. “Did he believe you about the f
ace?”

  “This guy was good,” Lester Carlson said again. “I mean I don’t really believe him, but at least he listened and made me feel I wasn’t totally crazy.”

  * * *

  Chapter 82

  “So you’re not crazy,” Katherine said.

  “He said I have a problem,” Lester Carlson smiled. “A problem he sees in a lot of people my age. People who have always been in charge and who were too busy to develop the feeling side of their personalities. When they retire they become vulnerable to fantasy and even hallucinations. What happens is I’m trying my hardest, according to Dr. Robb, to conjure up an environment where I am totally powerless. The exact opposite of what I was in my working life. My subconscious is attempting to create a new me; and that would free the old me from all the old doubts and pains, and past mistakes. And when this happens, well, you can start seeing things.”

  “Not a bad hypothesis,” Katherine said. “Not correct in this case, but not bad.”

  “Or possibly, total bullshit,” Lester Carlson laughed.

  “Yeah,” Katherine laughed also. “Possibly total bull that you paid good money for.”

  Both were silent for several minutes before Lester Carlson spoke.

  “Do you really think something is out there?” Lester Carlson asked in a subdued voice. “It’s all so illogical.”

  Katherine shook her head. “I saw the same face that you saw, right here on this road at twilight. And then last night something tried to levitate me right out of my body. And then there is this creepy guy following me and before that breaking into my house. And you know what is really strange—this blue light I saw last night. It had me hypnotized.”

  “A blue light?” Lester Carlson stopped and looked over at Katherine. “A hard, intense blue light. Is that what you saw?”

  Katherine nodded. “A very intense bright pinpoint of blue light that grew and grew. As bright as a welder’s torch, but like an eye. Like an eye spinning into focus, zeroing in on me.” Katherine shivered at the memory. “Is that what you saw too?”